Even the "normal" Lucids are silly fast. A friend recently bought an Air Grand Touring, and these are some of the things he says about it:
"A quick comment on initial "life with our first EV" -
My criteria for this car is it needed to be a good car first, EV second. What I mean by that is I apply my usual expectations to a car in terms of usability - I was not willing to sacrifice certain things just to say I could get an EV. It needed to be a great car AND a great EV and in my experience, only a few dedicated EVs pull this off - nearly all of them are from the new car startups (Lucid, Rivian, etc).
I had been watching Lucid's story unfold and the rave reviews this car was getting, and it was truly inspiring to see the level of thoughtful engineering and performance prioritization that went into this car. I had always wanted a sports sedan in the vein of the E39 BMW M5, and I can hand on my heart say this surpasses those expectations. Ride and handling is amazing, the steering is alive in my hands, the car is isolating but also involving. I made the decision in the process of test driving this car twice that I wanted to support Lucid and what they were trying to accomplish.
So far, the ownership has been easy. The tech works. All the screens are sharp, responsive, and everything is well thought out. This is a huge compliment - Icons are big and intuitive - you can navigate all the screens at a glance in traffic, which is something I will not be able to say about pretty much anything else with this kind of technology. I can flip on the heated seat, the massage, the wipers, and the headlamps without 3-4 glances and studying the screens. I can even flip the car driving aid settings on and off with a glance while I am driving....that is an amazing thing - most of the time, you need to physically stop the car and dig through menus.
Fit and finish is good, for the most part. The only complaints I have are some of the exterior panel gaps and finishes aren't up to Porsche standards, but if you are ascending from a lower tier of car you won't really notice or care...and frankly neither do I. Interior fit and finish is tight as can be - no creaks, squeaks, or rattles. If you are coming from a Tesla this will be a total revelation to you.
Performance deserves its own post, and I will follow up on that later.
EV range and EV challenges are not an issue in this car. Our use case is using it locally 20ish miles a day, longer trips on the weekends, and the occasional road trip. Lucid includes 3 years of Electrify America charging for free, but I charge with the standard EVSE using my 220-volt outlet in the garage and that is MORE than enough to charge the car. The car has a daily charge limit of 80% which gives me a real world range in this weather of 400 miles nearly exactly. In normal running around, we use 2-5% of that range. To give you an idea, the car was delivered to us with 90% SOC (it was charged to 100% for delivery) as it was driven up to our house from downtown Chicago. We then drove down to Old Orchard in Skokie, ran some more errands, and came home and we still had 85% SOC. I plugged it in and it would not charge because I had set the limit at 80%. So we had to drive it some more. Bottom line - all the whining and moaning I am reading in some of the other threads from anti-EV folks is simply is not an issue. Starting with 80% charge, running around 20-30 miles, and coming back you are only using 2-5% SOC, you plug it in to the wall outlet in your garage, it takes about 1 1/2 hours to recharge, and you're back in business.
I cannot speak to the charging network because I may realistically never use it unless I go out on a road trip, but from what I am seeing, there's plenty of chargers all along the routes I want to go. I am not concerned.
It is unlike any car I have ever driven or ridden in. The best way I can describe it is that it literally feels like a velvet-coated cast iron wall of power when you put your foot down, and it is 1:1 with the throttle movement - i.e., there's ZERO "ramp up" like you would expect in a turbo car. Twitch your ankle, instant response. Sneeze, and you will teleport into the next area code. It's drive-by-thinking. You see a gap in traffic, you want it, BAM, you own it. And with the regen braking set up you really never touch the brake. Ever. Someone starts creeping up next to me, twitch my right foot, merging guy is ancient history. And I am not talking about just a car length, either.
It is so far superior to an ICE car as to render the ICE car irrelevant. If you want to keep up with me in Sprint Mode, you literally need a fast-reflexes car like an exotic or a Bugatti Chiron. Something with that kind of reflex. Normal cars simply cannot keep up with 819 instant hp. It's hilarious.
And everyone I take out in the car and hit the accelerator starts laughing like a hyena. EVERY. ONE.
Stupid fun car. Anyone who says EVs are soulless and boring....basically hasn't driven an EV.
This car is HYSTERICALLY fast. Total giggle fest to drive hard. The acceleration is not it's only party piece but man, it never ever gets old.
Again, I keep referring to this, but it really says it all. I cannot imagine what a Sapphire must feel like."
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